Technology Structure and Skill Structure: Costly Investment and Complementarity Effects Quantification

Based on an extended model of endogenous directed technical change and on cross-country data, we identify and quantify the long-run link between: (i) the technology structure (high- versus low-tech sectors) and the skill structure (high- versus low-skilled workers), by considering an explicit role for the (potential) gross complementarity between technological goods; (ii) the Tobin-q and the technology characteristics of the firms through their impact on economic growth. Our estimation and calibration exercise suggests the existence of a moderate degree of gross complementarity and of an elastic relationship between the Tobin-q and key technology parameters.